But before I get to the new tables, I did some additional analysis based on my popular Farmville post, “The Personal Economics of Farmville“. I’ve produced a table that ranks all the Café World dishes based on the equivalent US $ / hour wage you are valuing your real world time when you play the game.

In order to do this, I needed to find some additional data. The first was an effective value of Café World coins. To do this, I used the payment schedule that Zynga has in the game (as of 11/30/2009):

Café Coins

Price ($)

Coins / $

15280

$4.99

3062.12

45240

$9.99

4528.53

125280

$19.99

6267.13

333300

$49.99

6667.33

1000000

$149.99

6667.11

Note the wide disparity in values! If you pay the bare minimum ($4.99), you are valuing Café World coins at 3062.12 per dollar. But if you pay at the high end ($49.99), you get 6667.33 coins per dollar.

Since there is such a wide disparity of values, I decided to calculate both a high and a low estimate for my table.

The second new piece of data needed was the “time spent per dish“. This is something that I left out of my initial calculations, but makes sense in this context.

Since all of my tables are “per dish per stove per day”, I estimated that you need to spend one (1) minute per cycle to clean the stove, buy the dish, and click through the 3 ingredients, and then get the finished dish. This might be a tad high, but it’s in the right ballpark.

What this means is that a dish that takes 5 minutes to cook is now estimated to have a cycle time of 6 minutes, with 1 minute of “real world time” spent. So, 1440 / 6 = 240, which means to cook a 5 minute dish all day you’d need to cook 240 cycles, which implies a sign up for 240 minutes of “real world time”.

This allowed me to do the simple algebra to weigh the profit per dish per day, in Café World coins, and then subtract the real world time, and figure out the effective “hourly wage” of each dish.

As it turns out, whether you use the high value or low value for coins, the sort order is the same. Here are all Café World dishes, sorted by “hourly wage”:

Dish

Hourly Wage (high)

Hourly Wage (low)

Impossible Quiche

$199.57

$91.66

Chicken Pot Pie

$148.62

$68.26

King Crab Bisque

$105.22

$48.33

Grand Tandoori Chicken

$78.08

$35.86

Homestyle Pot Roast

$77.10

$35.41

Herbed Halibut

$74.16

$34.06

Delicious Chocolate Cake

$67.31

$30.91

Overstuffed Peppers

$58.49

$26.86

Savory Stuffed Turkey

$56.53

$25.96

Crackling Peking Duck

$52.61

$24.16

Spitfire Roasted Chicken

$50.65

$23.26

Voodoo Chicken Salad

$38.40

$17.64

Lavish Lamb Curry

$34.98

$16.06

Vampire Staked Steak

$33.21

$15.25

Tostada de Carne Asada

$29.10

$13.36

Shu Mai Dumplings

$26.55

$12.19

Triple Berry Cheesecake

$24.20

$11.11

Kung Pao Stir Fry

$19.30

$8.86

Spaghetti and Meatballs

$17.83

$8.19

Tony’s Classic Pizza

$17.34

$7.96

Pumpkin Pie

$16.56

$7.60

Atomic Buffalo Wings

$11.66

$5.35

Fiery Fish Tacos

$9.60

$4.41

French Onion Soup

$8.33

$3.82

Caramel Apples

$3.82

$1.75

Buttermilk Pancakes

$2.65

$1.21

Tikka Masala Kabobs

$2.55

$1.17

Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail

$1.33

$0.61

Powdered French Toast

$1.31

$0.60

Super Chunk Fruit Salad

$0.98

$0.45

Chicken Gyro and Fries

$0.55

$0.25

Bacon Cheeseburger

$0.43

$0.20

Chips and Guacamole

$0.22

$0.10

Now, these figures are a little misleading, because the dishes that result in high profit (like the Impossible Quiche) and that have long cycle times result in very low amounts of real world time. As a result, if you can make $2 in a minute, you effectively get $120/hour. Still, it makes a point. If you are trying to minimize time spent in Café World for maximum profit, this is a pretty good list to go by.

First thing you’ll notice, is that Chips & Guacamole may build your Café World coin stash, but they are not valuing your time very highly. In fact, you have to get to Kung Pao Stir Fry to break above the living wage in California, at the low valuation for coins.

However, it also shows that the economics of these coin values are unsustainable. If Zynga allowed people to convert coins to US $ at these rates, then the value of opening up 50 Facebook accounts and cooking Impossible Quiche all day would beat most jobs. ($200/hour = approx $400K per year!)

Just one of the interesting things you find when you crunch the numbers.

For those of you looking for updated tables with the new dishes, see below.

Café World dishes, sorted by profit per dish per day:

Dish

Profit / Day

Profit / Hour

Min Per Cycle

Bacon Cheeseburger

6336.0

264.0

5.0

Overstuffed Peppers

5970.0

248.8

720.0

Kung Pao Stir Fry

5910.0

246.3

240.0

Delicious Chocolate Cake

5888.6

245.4

840.0

Fiery Fish Tacos

5880.0

245.0

120.0

Shu Mai Dumplings

5420.0

225.8

360.0

King Crab Bisque

5370.0

223.8

1440.0

Lavish Lamb Curry

5355.0

223.1

480.0

Chips and Guacamole

5280.0

220.0

3.0

Impossible Quiche

5092.5

212.2

2880.0

Powdered French Toast

4824.0

201.0

20.0

Super Chunk Fruit Salad

4800.0

200.0

15.0

Atomic Buffalo Wings

4760.0

198.3

180.0

Tostada de Carne Asada

4455.0

185.6

480.0

Buttermilk Pancakes

4320.0

180.0

45.0

Tony’s Classic Pizza

4248.0

177.0

300.0

Chicken Gyro and Fries

4032.0

168.0

10.0

Grand Tandoori Chicken

3985.0

166.0

1440.0

Voodoo Chicken Salad

3920.0

163.3

720.0

Chicken Pot Pie

3792.5

158.0

2880.0

Herbed Halibut

3785.0

157.7

1440.0

Crackling Peking Duck

3580.0

149.2

1080.0

Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail

3264.0

136.0

30.0

Savory Stuffed Turkey

3147.3

131.1

1320.0

Tikka Masala Kabobs

3120.0

130.0

60.0

Spaghetti and Meatballs

2730.0

113.8

480.0

Spitfire Roasted Chicken

2585.0

107.7

1440.0

French Onion Soup

2550.0

106.3

240.0

Triple Berry Cheesecake

2470.0

102.9

720.0

Caramel Apples

2340.0

97.5

120.0

Homestyle Pot Roast

1967.5

82.0

2880.0

Vampire Staked Steak

1695.0

70.6

1440.0

Pumpkin Pie

1690.0

70.4

720.0

Café World dishes, sorted by Café World points per dish per day:

Dish

CP / Day

CP / Hour

Min Per Cycle

Bacon Cheeseburger

2016.0

84.0

5.0

Chicken Gyro and Fries

2016.0

84.0

10.0

Chips and Guacamole

1920.0

80.0

3.0

Powdered French Toast

1512.0

63.0

20.0

Super Chunk Fruit Salad

1344.0

56.0

15.0

Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail

1008.0

42.0

30.0

Buttermilk Pancakes

992.0

41.3

45.0

Shu Mai Dumplings

624.0

26.0

360.0

Lavish Lamb Curry

600.0

25.0

480.0

Fiery Fish Tacos

588.0

24.5

120.0

Atomic Buffalo Wings

544.0

22.7

180.0

Tikka Masala Kabobs

528.0

22.0

60.0

Delicious Chocolate Cake

468.0

19.5

840.0

Kung Pao Stir Fry

450.0

18.8

240.0

Savory Stuffed Turkey

439.6

18.3

1320.0

Caramel Apples

420.0

17.5

120.0

Overstuffed Peppers

412.0

17.2

720.0

Grand Tandoori Chicken

403.0

16.8

1440.0

Tostada de Carne Asada

369.0

15.4

480.0

French Onion Soup

366.0

15.3

240.0

Voodoo Chicken Salad

336.0

14.0

720.0

Tony’s Classic Pizza

326.4

13.6

300.0

Spaghetti and Meatballs

300.0

12.5

480.0

Triple Berry Cheesecake

280.0

11.7

720.0

King Crab Bisque

252.0

10.5

1440.0

Herbed Halibut

225.0

9.4

1440.0

Crackling Peking Duck

221.3

9.2

1080.0

Spitfire Roasted Chicken

210.0

8.8

1440.0

Impossible Quiche

175.5

7.3

2880.0

Chicken Pot Pie

153.5

6.4

2880.0

Pumpkin Pie

152.0

6.3

720.0

Homestyle Pot Roast

139.5

5.8

2880.0

Vampire Staked Steak

113.0

4.7

1440.0

Enjoy.

Update: I’ve now published updated information on Cafe World Economics.

very interesting article. good analysis. I think most of these game economies seem to unsustainable. they’re just interested in making as much money as possible, and they can print unlimited money AND make unlimited ‘goods’ in the game, so they don’t think about it much. I’d love to play a game where the economy was regulated and based on fixed resources.